Card handling devices (e.g., card shufflers) are used in the gaming industry for increasing the efficiency, security, and game speed in live table games, such as Blackjack, Baccarat, and various forms of poker. Card handling devices may perform a variety of functions including randomly shuffling one or more decks of cards in an efficient and thorough manner. In a live table game, shuffling the cards in an efficient and thorough manner may assist in preventing players from having an advantage by knowing the position of specific cards or groups of cards in the final arrangement of cards delivered in the play of the game. Additionally, it may be desirable to shuffle the cards in a very short period of time in order to reduce delay in the play of the game.
Card shufflers may include a card recognition system, which may be used to verify the contents of the card set, such as one or more decks and ensure that the card set contains all the appropriate cards, and also to detect any cards which do not belong therein. The card recognition system may also enable a card shuffler to verify the contents of the deck throughout the game play. Some known card shufflers may comprise a card recognition system that employs sensors and a hardware component that may sense the rank (2-10, Jack-Ace) and suit (spade, club, heart, diamond) from the face of a card and thereafter convert signals from the sensed data into vector sets. The vector sets may be compared to known vector sets of a verified deck of cards. Other known card shufflers may comprise a camera that captures an unknown image of each card entered into the card shuffler and then extracts the card rank and suit from the unknown image. The unknown image may be compared to master images of a verified deck of cards to identify the cards.
There are several different card manufacturers (e.g., Angel, Gemaco, U.S. Playing Card Company, Cartamundi, Ace, Copag, etc.) each having different types of card designs. For example, the card images (e.g., graphics) printed on the card faces may vary from one deck to the next. In addition, the size and location of the rank and suit may also vary from one deck design to the next.
In order to support each of the various possible card images, the card recognition system of the card shuffler may be loaded with a set of master images containing the rank and suit symbols of a particular deck design. The master images may be stored in memory within the card shuffler in a particular subdirectory associated with that particular deck design. For example, a subdirectory may exist for each deck type supported by the card shuffler. The process of creating these master images conventionally requires a substantial amount of manual measurement and analysis by a technician to create and load the master images for each deck type. For example, the technician may manually enter parameters into a calibration file listing different measurements and locations related to the rank and suit symbols. This process involves trial and error, and is time consuming as the technician attempts to find the right combination of parameters to use in generating the master images.
Another obstacle associated with conventional card detection devices is that card manufacturers may create new deck designs or make changes to existing deck designs. The conventional method of manually creating deck libraries becomes burdensome to technicians who not only have to create the deck libraries, but also need to update the deck libraries of card shufflers in use in the field. In addition, each individual card shuffler may be configured differently, which may require the technician to create a new calibration file for a particular machine. As a result, when the same deck library is created for one card shuffler and then simply reproduced and stored on each additional card shuffler, there may be variations during card recognition from one card shuffler to the next, even within the same model of shuffler.
Once loaded onto a card shuffler, the dealer may select the specific deck design that will be used during game play. Selecting the deck in the card shuffler determines which deck library (e.g., master images and other related files) is used for comparison with the card images captured during use. The dealer may select the incorrect deck type, often for reasons such as a lack of training or simple input error. As a result, the deck library from one deck type may be used for comparison with images from another deck type. Using the wrong deck library may result in errors in card identification.